Transcript
Paul Harvey (0:00)
Now, the rest of the story. Once upon a time, there was a gourmet chef named John. He employed a young man named Russell. Russell ash a S C H. And Russell could not cook. Now, it's important to understand, if we're to forgive him for what he did, that Russell was no cook. He merely answered mail. He was in charge of John's often voluminous correspondent. I'm going to let you get a piece of paper to write something down in case you'd like to take down a recipe for popovers, because it is a very special recipe. Of all of Chef John's favorite dishes, this remarkable rice pudding and his delectable green turtle soup and all of the others, the one recipe his admirers admired most was his one for popovers. In fact, John's popovers were so popular that even after his recipe had been published in the newspapers, folks still wrote to him asking for copies of the same recipe. I'm going to read it to you now. The ingredients are three eggs, a quarter teaspoon of salt, a half teaspoon of sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 2 tablespoons melted shortening. Before you start mixing these ingredients, grease your pans and preheat them to 450 degrees. Now, beat the eggs for a few minutes until they're frothy. Add the salt and the sugar and the flour and half of the milk and mix again. Only when this mixture is smooth do you add the remaining milk and the melted shortening and blend with the rest. Pour the batter into the preheated popover pans. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 400 and continue baking for 15 minutes more. And the recipe makes a dozen popovers. Now, I direct your attention to Chef John's employee, Russell. Russell thought that he had that popover recipe memorized. After all, he'd copied it so many times, answering requests for it. But then, this one time, Russell did not go to the file to retrieve the cooking instructions, and he answered one admirer's request for the beloved recipe, relying entirely on his memory. And Russell got it wrong, something he might not have regarded as significant. He said two teaspoons of shortening instead of tablespoons. One might even have considered it a typographical error. But in any event, the incorrect recipe was never mailed because another of John's employees caught the mistake. And that would have been that, except that John himself found out. And John discovered that Russell had almost sent out a bogus popover recipe. He the gourmet Chef John was most upset. Russell received a scolding letter from his employer. And though he was not fired, along awaited promotion and a raise in salary were. How shall I say this? Well, they were postponed indefinitely because that's how important John considered the bona fide recipe for his popovers. And the very thought that one of his recipes should have a typographical or other error in it, that those popovers might be made by somebody less than perfect. It was just more than he could stand. So you are beginning to imagine how seriously Chef John must have taken his true profession. He was an amateur gourmet cook. He had another job because John, John E. Was also known as J. Edgar Hoover. If you thought FBI agents like Russell Ash spent all of their time cracking federal crime, now you know the rest of the story.